These agreements have increased in number as well as complexity since the early 1990s. One of the most frequently asked questions is whether these regional groups help or hinder the WTO’s multilateral trading system. WTO members, working in various committees, work to address such concerns.

Regional trading arrangements

Regional trade agreements (RTAs) seem to compete with the WTO, but often they can actually support the WTO’s multilateral trading system. RTAs, defined in the WTO as reciprocal preferential trade agreements between two or more partners, have allowed countries to negotiate rules and commitments that go beyond what was possible multilaterally. In turn, some of these rules have paved the way for agreement in the WTO. Services, intellectual property, environmental standards, investment and competition policies are all issues that were raised in regional negotiations and later developed into agreements or topics of discussion in the WTO.

In particular, the agreements should help trade flow more freely among the countries in the RTA without barriers being raised on trade with the outside world. In other words, regional integration should complement the multilateral trading system and not threaten it.